Half Sick of Shadows

by Laura Sebastian

  I shook my head. “Don’t be silly, Gwen.”

  Guinevere gave me a serious look. “Everyone says so—Arthur is more level-headed and strategic and diplomatic. Apparently those are qualities that make for a good ruler in Albion.”

  “Not in Lyonesse?” I asked.

  She frowned. “In Lyonesse, it is about strength. Strength to take a throne and strength to hold it. Our dynasties aren’t the same as other countries’. Power shifts far more often. My father is the longest-reigning king, you know, and he’s only been on the throne for two decades. Disagreements aren’t settled with diplomacy and polite debate there—they’re settled with blood. Wonderful a king as Arthur might be, he wouldn’t survive a week in Lyonesse.”

  I wasn’t sure I could disagree with that assessment, but I still wanted to defend Arthur. Back then, he’d been merely infatuated with her—an infatuation we’d all believed was one-sided. He wanted so badly to be thought well of by Gwen—hearing that she thought him weak would have shattered his heart.

  “Arthur’s brave, though,” I said.

  Guinevere looked at me like I had just sprouted green hair. “Well, of course he is,” she said. “He speaks his mind and defends his actions, which is the kind of bravery that matters most in a ruler, no matter what kind of ruler they are. He has the other kind of bravery, too—the sort that’s tied to his pride and temper that most boys seem to have. It’s just that to lead Lyonesse, you have to be fearless.”

  I had always heard brave and fearless used interchangeably, but when I said as much to Gwen, she laughed.

  “A person is brave in spite of their fear, but being fearless is another beast entirely. Arthur could never be fearless. The wise ones know that there is much to fear in the world; it’s the foolish who claim that nothing frightens them and only because they don’t have the foresight to know what to be afraid of until it’s too late. You aren’t fearless, are you, Elaine?”

  She said it like a challenge, though I wasn’t sure what the right answer was. I shook my head. “No, not at all. I think I fear too many things.”

  “Because you and Arthur are the same,” she said. “Wise and brave, yes, but never fearless.”

  I don’t think anyone had called me brave before, and at first I wanted to correct her. I wasn’t brave, after all. Most days, I still felt like the frightened girl I was in Camelot, hiding in shadows and keeping my head down. But even when I was that girl . . . I left. I walked away when it would have been easier to stay and suffer in silence. Maybe that had been a kind of bravery.

  Gwen was right, though, I would never be fearless. I don’t think there has ever been such a thing as a fearless seer.

  I followed Gwen out of the woods, past the last of the great oak trees, greeted by a fresh sea breeze that ruffled my hair, carrying with it the scent of salt water and serenity. The bright moon shone down on the jagged cliffside that overlooked the beach below. At first, I thought it was the one from my vision with Morgana, but this one was much lower and more narrow. Gwen must have come often, because she went straight to the edge and sat down, letting her feet dangle over precariously. She closed her hands and extinguished the light she carried, the moon overhead bright enough to make up for it.

  I stopped a step short, standing at her shoulder. Even that felt too close to the edge for me and I wanted to take a step back, but I forced myself to hold my ground.

  “Are you fearless?” I asked her, though looking at her sitting at the edge of the cliff like it was the most natural thing in the world, I think I knew the answer already.

  Her smile turned to a grin, and her eyes lit up with mischief. “Oh yes,” she said. “I’ll be a fearless fool to my last breath. There is no saving me from that.”

  11

  CAMELOT IS QUIET. In my memory it is a bustling city at all hours, full of shopkeepers hawking their wares to harried shoppers, children playing in the streets, and the smell of roasting meat and potatoes in the air. Now, though, there isn’t a soul in sight. The streets are empty; the air is still and silent. It is a ghost city.

  Finally, as we approach the castle, a lone man crosses our path, dressed in a dirty gray cloak and hunched over a crooked cane.

  “You, sir,” Arthur calls out, pulling his horse to a stop.

  The man looks up, bewildered at our presence.

  “What’re you doing out and about?” the man demands.

  Arthur looks at us and shrugs his shoulders before looking back at him.

  “We seek the sorcerer Merlin. Do you know where he can be found?” he asks.

  The man stares at Arthur for a moment, agog, before he begins to laugh so hard his whole body shakes.

  “Merlin?” he echoes. “You’re looking for Merlin?”

  “Do you know him?” I ask hopefully.

  “Aye,” the man says through laughter. “Just as I knew King Uther. Good friends, we all were.”

  Arthur still looks perplexed, too used to the straight answers of the fey to recognize the man’s sarcasm. I shake my head.

  “He can’t help us,” I say. “Come on, someone in the castle should—”

  “Hold on, miss,” the man interrupts, straightening up and stilling his laughter. “It’s true, I don’t know Merlin personally, but it just so happens I do know where the sorcerer can be found.”

  “Where?” Morgana asks.

  The man gestures around the city with his free hand. “The same place everyone else is—the coronation of the new king, taking place in the throne room. Would’ve gone myself, but bah, once you’ve seen a couple of coronations, you’ve seen them all—”

  “Coronation,” I interrupt, my voice growing shrill even to my own ears as panic overtakes me. “That’s impossible. Whose coronation?”

  The man lifts his bushy eyebrows.

  “Why, the crown prince,” he says slowly, as if we are the mad ones. “Prince Mordred.”

  To the others, the name is only passingly familiar, mentioned briefly by Nimue as Arthur’s bastard brother and Morgause’s new husband. I, on the other hand, know his name and know his face. I’ve Seen it in visions, seen it stitched into shimmering tapestry before picking it apart, as if that simple act is enough to erase his actions, his great innumerable treasons. I saw it in person, only once, but that was enough for me.

  I dig my heels into my horse’s sides and urge her on, quickly, to the palace rising in the distance.

  “Come on,” I shout to the others over my shoulder. “There’s no time to lose.”

  * * *

  MORDRED WILL BE the death of Arthur.

  Or at least he’ll deliver the final blow.

  Really, Arthur will start dying the second Morgana betrays him. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say it will start when he betrays her. When Gwen and Lancelot betray him, he’ll die a little more. He will charge into battle a shell of himself.

  It will be in the middle of that battlefield swarming with the shadows of men. A thousand screams will pierce the air around them, but Arthur’s won’t join them. He won’t scream or cry or beg for mercy. He’ll only stare at Mordred, empty and determined, as if he could kill him with his gaze alone. But there will be something else in the look—a dare.

  End it, the look will say. Its own kind of plea. Because he will know that this isn’t a battle he will win. He will know that death is close and that, in its own way, it will be a mercy.

  He will only wish that he didn’t have to die alone.

  Mordred’s blade will slice through Arthur’s chest, and though the battle still rages, I hear the noise it will make. I feel it in my own chest as if I’ve been stabbed as well.

  His eyes will search the world around him, desperate for a familiar face in the hell he’s found himself in, but there will be no one left.

  I’m here, I want to tell him. I’m with you. You are not alone.

 
But I’m not there. I’m not with him. And he will breathe his last breath alone, a single unuttered word on his lips.

  A name, maybe.

  * * *

  THE THRONE ROOM is overflowing with people, all clamoring to get a look at the man they believe will be their new king, though not if I can help it. It’s the poorest of Camelot’s citizens who cluster in the back, dressed in their finest clothes, plain and worn as those might be. They are all so tightly packed together that there is no getting through them, no matter how we try.

  “Morgana,” I say, grabbing her arm. “Use a spell—clear a path.”

  Morgana doesn’t need to be urged twice to use magic. The words are barely out of my mouth before the air around her begins to shift, smelling of jasmine and oranges.

  And just like that, people shuffle to the side—not far, there’s not enough room—but enough to create a narrow path.

  “Lance, you first, and shout as loud as you can,” I say to him. My heartbeat thrums in my ears, blood rushing through me like I’m running. Every nerve feels alive at once—it is a frightening feeling, but one I would drown in if I could. It is an addicting thing, to have a purpose. “They’ll listen to you. Announce Arthur’s presence. Herald him in.”

  Lancelot looks unsure, but he nods, shouldering through the crowd. He stands far taller than most, and with his broad shoulders squared and his head held high, he cuts quite an imposing figure, making way for Arthur to follow in his wake, with Morgana and me close behind.

  “Make way for Arthur Vendragon,” he shouts. “Rightful heir to the throne of Camelot.”

  “Pendragon,” I whisper. “It’s Pendragon.”

  “Right,” Lancelot says. “Arthur Pendragon, rightful heir to the throne of Camelot, coming through, if you don’t mind. Make way for the true king, please and thank you.”

  I’m sure his mother would be quite proud of his manners, but no one else seems terribly amused by them.

  “Louder,” I say. “More commanding. You have to tell them, not ask them.”

  Lancelot shakes his head but complies, lifting his voice high enough to be heard throughout the throne room.

  “Make way for the true king, Arthur Pendragon,” he shouts. “Make way for the king.”

  Finally our group breaks through the throng of commoners and steps into the throne room itself, more spacious and less crowded. Everyone here is dressed in elaborate brocade dripping in jewels and pearls and crystal flowers, with hair that’s been coiffed and braided and powdered. A single silk slipper here would pay for a whole peasant family to eat for a year.

  Where the peasants stared at us warily, these people are outwardly hostile, and Morgana has to work her spell even harder to urge them out of our way, though there is far more room now than there was before.

  Finally, we reach the front, where a young man with dark hair and a hooked nose sits on the great golden throne while a man stands behind him, white hair tied back from his sharp-featured face, fingers all ringed with gold and silver. He holds a crown, hovering it just over the dark-haired man’s head. Mordred is ten years older than the boy I met in the corridor with Morgause, but still a few years shy of the man I’ve Seen kill Arthur, trapped somewhere between a king’s unwanted bastard and a fearsome and desperate warrior.

  And the white-haired man—Merlin. I’d seen him often at court, though always from a distance. Somehow he looks younger than he did then. He must be hundreds of years old, but just now he looks barely forty.

  “Stop,” Arthur calls out, stepping in front of Lancelot and drawing himself up to his full height, even taller than Lancelot, taller than almost everyone around him.

  “How dare you interrupt the ceremony with your theatrics,” Mordred says, glowering. “Continue, Merlin.”

  “We come from Avalon,” I blurt out, though as soon as the words pass my lips, I realize they might have been the wrong ones to say. I clear my throat and change paths, looking only at Merlin. “I don’t know if you remember me, sir.”

  Merlin pauses, eyes on me. The crown in his hands hesitates, hovering still above Mordred’s dark head.

  “Elaine Astolat,” he says slowly, recognition sparking in his eyes. “The Lady of Shalott.”

  At the sound of my name, the crowd behind me erupts in hushed voices. Most of those whispers must be about my father and brothers, I’d imagine, but there are some here who must remember me, must remember my mother. I hold my ground and keep my eyes on Merlin.

  “You were here, sir, when Morgana came to court.” I gesture behind me, where Morgana stands. “You were here when we left together. Do you remember?”

  “I do,” Merlin says, looking at Morgana, then at me. “I did not think to see you again.”

  I reach into my pocket to pull out the sealed letter, holding it out to him. “Nimue sent us back, with Prince Arthur, to take his rightful throne.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Mordred says, looking between Merlin and me. “Prince Arthur disappeared as a baby. He’s dead.”

  “Perhaps,” Merlin says slowly, his eyes moving from me to Arthur, appraising.

  “Prince Mordred is right,” a man behind me says, his voice booming, echoing in the cavernous space. “This boy—whoever he may be—looks nothing like Uther. He is far too skinny, too fair, to be his son. This is nothing more than a trick, like all those other imposters who have shown up since Uther’s death.”

  “Perhaps,” Merlin says again, but he sets the crown down on the pedestal beside the throne and comes toward me, taking the letter from my fingers and unfurling it. As I suspected, the seal breaks under his touch, and the spell with it dissolves in a puff of white smoke. As his eyes scan the missive, I pull the signet ring and the other letter from my pocket as well.

  “I also have this ring and the original letter Uther sent to Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, when he entrusted Arthur to her care.”

  That leads to a new eruption of protests.

  “King Uther would never give his son to the fey,” one man shouts.

  “It is a trick—the boy is a changeling sent to be the fey’s puppet,” a woman adds.

  “We will have no puppet king.”

  “Long live King Mordred.”

  The shouts multiply until there is nothing but a din of protests, but Merlin holds up a hand and the room falls silent.

  “This boy may indeed be the lost prince,” he says, and though his voice is quiet, it carries throughout the room so that even the peasants gathered outside can hear. “But then, he may not be. The letter is indeed from Uther—I was present when it was signed. The ring, too, is genuine, and I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the letter from the Lady of the Lake as well.”

  Relief surges through me, but before it takes too firm a hold, Merlin continues.

  “However,” he says, “the fey are tricksters. It is known. And it may be that they have sent us an imposter in the place of the prince.”

  “All I am hearing is mays,” Mordred says with a scowl. “Nothing solid enough to interfere with my coronation. Continue.”

  For an instant, I worry Merlin will agree, but after a moment he shakes his head. “I fear that would be unwise, Prince Mordred,” he says, his voice low. Now, it doesn’t carry. In fact, I would doubt that anyone farther back than us could hear him. “To ascend to the throne amid conflict is to wear the crown too briefly. We must do our due diligence to assure everyone the claim of the king is a true one.”

  Though he speaks to Mordred, his eyes are on Arthur, and I understand that the words are meant for us as well. I understand that Merlin could declare Arthur king, but to do so would leave many unconvinced, that the crown would pass to him with uncertainty that could fester and spread.

  “I propose a series of three tests,” Merlin says, louder now, to everyone gathered. “The first is simple and can be performed here and now to test this
so-called prince’s blood.” He holds up the crinkled letter, marked with a spot of Uther’s blood, turned brown with age. “If he is Uther’s son in body, a simple spell should declare it so.”

  He gestures Arthur up onto the dais to stand beside him. When he is there, Merlin takes Arthur’s hand and the dagger at his hip, using the point of it to prick Arthur’s thumb. When a bead of blood wells up there, Merlin touches it to the letter, just over Uther’s bloodied mark. He holds the paper up so that everyone can see.

  “If these two are of the same blood, the mark will turn blue, to show that this boy is of the same royal lineage.”

  For a moment, everyone in the room holds their breath, their eyes stuck to the parchment. The change happens like ink blossoming across water, spreading out slowly, then all at once.

  “There,” Morgana says, her voice triumphant. “That proves it—Arthur is the rightful king of Camelot.”

  Merlin makes a sound in the back of his throat. “What it proves is that Arthur is indeed of Uther’s blood—reassuring, yes, but not enough. Before his death, Uther declared Mordred his legitimate son and his heir, and so it isn’t enough for Arthur to only be of the same blood as Uther—Mordred is as well now. He must also be of the same mind and of the same spirit. As I said, there will be three tests.”

  Three tests, but one already done in a matter of seconds. “Whether it’s three tests or a hundred, it will be done,” I say. “What is the next? Whatever it is, Arthur will pass them all as easily as he passed the first.”

  But as soon as Merlin smiles at me, I realize I’ve made a mistake, though I don’t know what it was. “Three will be enough, but the next will not be as simple, I’m afraid.” He turns to address the crowd again. “As many of you know, what should have been King Uther’s greatest legacy eluded him in his life. A true son would be able to fulfill it.”

  The crowd begins to cheer and jeer, knowing what is coming next, though I can’t begin to guess.